Smell Loss Can Be As Devastating As Parkinson's and Stroke

It's been 17 years of complete smell loss and only tasting sweet/salty/bitter/sour/umami (I can no longer taste flavors).

But that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to smell loss (anosmia). Most don't realize the far-reaching effects of not being able to smell or taste the world you live in.

This article explain why it is, in fact, devastating. Every single day.

Smell Loss Can Be As Devastating As Parkinson's and Stroke (by University of East Anglia)

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-loss-devastating-parkinson.html

                                                   this would smell like nothing to me

image via Unsplash

Making Videos

For quite a long time now, I have been making videos of various things - mostly revolving around my photo art.

Along the way I have found that I absolutely love every thing involved with putting together a video.  I'm already in love with my cameras so it's a thrill the use them to record some interesting, fun, or even mundane thing - doesn't matter, I just like filming stuff.

Then there's the video software, which keeps my brain energized and entertained as I learn my way around how to put together a video.  I'm quite sure, by the way, that I will never 'master' the software - there's just too much to know, but that's okay because I don't think I like anything more than I like teaching myself things.  I've been self-taught my whole life - it's my life force.

Of course once you put together a video you have to do something with it and that's where YouTube comes in.  This is actually the most tricky part of the whole process.  Tricky, to me, because - and this might be scandolous to some - I kind of really don't care about likes and subscribers, etc.

via GIPHY

For me, no, it isn't the goal.
Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't want likes and subscribers, it's that I can't get wrapped up in how many I have.  I did that over the years with Facebook and Instagram for my artwork pages when I was really active making photo art and it was a distraction that took away from making the actual art.  I got in my own head about "I only got  X number of likes"...that kind of thing.  

Now it's like, Hello World, here is the thing I created...and that's it.
I'm making the thing because I love making the thing.  Worrying about the stats - how many, how much, can I get monetized, etc - would just be another of the things I would consider to be the antithesis to my creativity. 

The videos I've made and will be making are far from perfect and I have a very long way to go before I actually can say I remotely know what I'm doing, but who cares?  I'm just over here looking forward to and having a great time making videos about whatever I want...and that is the only thing that really ever matters.

 

(this is not actually me)

My most recent video:

 

My YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@wistfulgypsy

 

Turns Out You Can't Take The Girl Out Of New Jersey Afterall

Have you ever found yourself in a really nice neighborhood with really nice houses and as you look around you ask yourself sardonically, yes, but are they actually completely happy?

I've been here in lower Delaware for just over two years now and I live in a really nice cul-de-sac neighborhood and I have a house and property that I never imagined I would ever have and if you ride by my house and ask the above question -yes, but are they actually completely happy? - the answer I would give would be a resounding...

Now, my admission of being not thoroughly happy will bring great joy to my detractors and those who otherwise wish me ill will or who may or may not have had a curse cast upon me.  Nothing I can do about that except hope that they find a way to not mess with their karma by wishing bad things for another human.  Also, if anyone knows of a qualified curse-removing gypsy-type I'd appreciate the referral.

However, it seems to me that admitting one's unhappiness would be an excellent first step in turning that around.  

So here we are.

***

In the past I have written about not being able to bloom where I am planted.  This has been a theme in my life since I moved away from the New Jersey shore which is one of the only places that has ever felt like home to me.  I was born and raised in Elizabeth, NJ, which is another of the places that still feel like home.  Since then I have lived in many different places but it's those two places that will always be home to me. 

The big common denominator is that the places I've been the happiest are in New Jersey.

New Jersey, land that I love.

I have a level of homesickness for New Jersey that I never anticipated. As a Delaware resident I am a square peg in a round hole.

Delaware has its good points but New Jersey it is not.  Delaware natives in the two lower counties*, most of whom would like it very much if we transplants returned to where we came from anyway, detest when we say that.  (They also, oddly, get really mad if you say you moved here because of the lower property taxes, which are one of the aforementioned good points about Delaware, by the way.) 
I'm not going to turn this into a list of what Delaware lacks vs. New Jersey but I will say that if you come from a place (cough cough New Jersey cough) where culture and variety and vibrance and activities play a big role, then maybe don't move to lower Delaware.  If you are longing for a quiet country life, don't care if there's nothing to do after 7pm, love the idea of lower property tax and no sales tax, then pack up and move to Delaware.  Just know that some of the natives down here won't be very happy about your arrival.  Do not expect the Welcome Wagon to roll down the street and stop at your door.
Maybe you'll get lucky - I've heard of a few people who have moved into warm and inviting neighborhoods, but that has not been my experience or that of countless others.

***

But back to my unhappiness...

Throwback Thursday: Road To Nowhere

Creative people are often asked about their inspiration or their muse or whatever it is that kicks their imagination and motivation into high gear. Some have really complicated rituals while others turn to music to put them into their prolific state of mind. There are even a few people that recommend sticking to a routine which I do not get at all since I see routine as the antithesis to creativity.

As an artist who uses photographs as the basis of my artwork, when I need to get my blood flowing I get in the car with my cameras and sometimes a person or two that I love and my dogs and I hit the road. Drives to nowhere are always the goal, and always on country back roads. Nothing soothes my soul and clears my head more than indulging the wanderlust and need for simplicity that is imbedded in my personal genetic makeup. Farms and barns, cows and horses, corn fields, roadside stands, and a sky full of puffy white clouds. There is not much that can be better than all of that. My artwork revolves mostly around these kinds of bucolic scenes although I do add a whimsical twist to them in order to really get people’s attention. We are all so inundated visually and otherwise nowadays that sometimes you have to go left of center to make people see.

When I am out on one of my drives I have to pull over countless times to let someone pass so that they no longer tailgate me. They ride up on me not because I am going too slow but because they are going too fast. Although I am maintaining the speed limit, I am in the way of them racing at breakneck speed to get to where they are going in record time.
I am in the way of them racing to speed through their life, seemingly oblivious to the risks they are taking, the most important being the risk of missing out on the very quality of their own lives.
I want people to slow down. That is one of the reasons why I enhance my landscape artwork so that it has a manipulated, wonky element to it. It makes people pause; they linger long enough to really see what they are looking at.
I want them to pay attention to the beauty that is everywhere that they are not seeing as they lose their senses of wonder and awe to the myriad of distractions that everyone is consumed with and buried under nowadays.
I cannot imagine that it is worth any of these risks, particularly the risk of not seeing all there is to see every single day of our lives. Remember staring at clouds until they turned into recognizable shapes? When is the last time you did that?

These days everyone is preoccupied as they rush from one place to another. They are talking, texting, checking in, status updating, tweeting, Instagramming, picking up, dropping off, shopping, etc. All of that distraction is coming at a very high cost and that cost has nothing to do with the ridiculous amounts of money spent on gadgetry. I read recently that mobile data revenues in the U.S. market were $90 billion for 2013. That is a whole lot of distraction.

When is the last time you got in the car to go for a drive to nowhere? How about taking a walk in the countryside just to listen to how quiet it is there? Do your kids know how great it is to dip their toes into a stream or to laugh while watching the antics of a bunch of farm animals?

Le petit bonheur is a French term that translates to the small happiness. It means to take pleasure in and appreciate the little things. It means that if you see a lady with a camera pulled off to the side of the road, instead of speeding past her, think about slowing down to see what she is taking pictures of.

You might wind up being very pleasantly surprised.

Sharon O’Brien Huey
June 2014

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